


Nuits Blanches

by TheSoulOfAStrawberry



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Gen, Insomnia, Sleep Deprivation, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:05:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6667081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoulOfAStrawberry/pseuds/TheSoulOfAStrawberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Post-"I am A Sword") Finn tackles insomnia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nuits Blanches

It’s fun the first time he does it. He’s 13 and he can’t quite remember why they did it, just that it was fun, and now, now he’s 18, it’s not fun anymore.

He thinks it was probably some kind of party. It seemed like the only logical conclusion- after Jake gave up his life of crime, he made sure to be more than a good guardian to Finn, so there’s no way he would have been allowed were it not for some special circumstance. 

He couldn’t remember what happened, but he imagined it like this: Jake had told him he could stay up all night, maybe half way into the night, or maybe pulled him aside quietly before anything got going. He’d be really excited, and not afraid to show it either, not yet bound by the social conventions of adolescence, even though he was 13. It’d go on like that for a while, maybe until 3am, when pragmatism would kick in and he’d subtlety take it down a notch, opting to sit in the corner, leaning gently on whichever princess happened to be closest. By the time the sun rose over the treehouse, casting everything in otherworldly pinks and oranges, he would barely be able to keep his eyes open. Once he and Jake had cleaned up, and Jake gave him this look- part-smirk, part-smile, an acknowledgement of the hijinks of the previous night and how dopey Finn looked not being able to walk straight, and that was it: Finn was gone. He’d sleep until maybe early afternoon- not later, he didn’t start doing that until he was older- and they’d laugh about it after. He’d probably think he’d never forget that night. Yet he did.

Of course, Jake always brought up the time they didn’t sleep for a week. Finn wasn’t sure that was strictly true- he was pretty sure they’d caught some kip here and there, but it certainly was a feat either way. When he was lay in bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark, he’d sometimes wonder how he’d had so much energy back then. He couldn’t remember it. These days, he didn’t seem to obviously get less done in a day but he felt like he probably did. He felt like he was holding himself back, however that worked. Was it just because he hadn’t tried it recently, that he couldn’t get so much done in a week with no sleep? They did say, after all, that the less you do, the less you want to do. Then again, some days Finn could save three towns from total annihilation and the next day he’d wake up and wonder if death was preferable to leaving his bed, so maybe that was nothing more than just a saying Jake used to make him take a shower when he wasn’t sure he could be bothered to wash his hair.

He wasn’t sure when staying up all night stopped being fun exactly. It had been a slow process. It crept up on him. It coincided with a lot of other stuff too- his problems with sleep probably increased a lot when his dad was around, but he’d always thought they were temporary and once he… he wasn’t sure, maybe he thought he’d come to terms with his dad? That his dad would stop being such a groobing jerk? That somehow, all the moods and the insomnia and the yelling and the feeling like nothing ever could be worse than having almost an entire limb missing would just up and leave one day, maybe along with his dad. And yet, when his dad was blasted into space dust, he was left feeling messed up. And when he tried to unmess himself, he realised that maybe what he’d been living with for the previous six months or so wasn’t just part of the situation, but part of him. No new girlfriend, no change of scenery, no amount of talking it over with Jake and screaming to himself in empty forests could undo any of it.

He acknowledged he’d taken a long time to realise the reason he avoided sleep was the nightmares. He’d had nightmares before, loads, but they weren’t every night and they didn’t always have the same people in it. Looking back, sorting out his deal with Shoko had been so easy. Maybe it was because they didn’t really feel like dreams- they weren’t dreams, not really. More memories, even if they weren’t technically his. Finding penance for Shoko was straightforward really. Untangling himself from an entire lifetime’s worth of confliction about his real parents and his apparent abandonment complex, as well as a bunch of other junk he didn’t even realise bothered him: that was difficult. 

And then there was the nature of the nightmares, if he could even call them that. They weren’t goo monsters and Jake’s death- they were just his dad being irritating mostly, especially when he was still around and fresh in Finn’s mind. If Martin put sharks in a pool, it wasn’t so they’d eat Finn, it was to inconvenience him as the owner of a dreamscape water park. If Finn was seeing Bonnibel, Martin wouldn’t out-and-out humiliate him in front of her, he’d just keep making excuses for Finn to help someone and do this for him until Finn missed seeing Bonny entirely. It continued like that, every night. They were seldom dreams that made him wake up screaming. He guessed this was weird since in waking life he was still coming to terms with his arm, and the chronic pain left behind by what he assumed was a cursed prosthetic of sorts, which he was sure was slowly spreading and infecting the upper part of his arm, sometimes as far up as his shoulder. Not to mention, if he didn’t wake up screaming, the chances were he’d have forgotten his dream within a few seconds of waking up, and the only remnants of Martin’s existence in his mind would be a deep sense of discomfort and the feeling he was on edge that lasted all morning.

But, of course, it kept getting worse. Jake was first to point it out. Jake was almost always the first one to point out things that were off about Finn, even if he knew Finn didn’t want to hear it.

“You look tired,” was all he started with. Finn brushed it off, grunting and staring down at his eggs. One of them had two yolks and he wondered if a chicken like theirs with two heads was more likely to give double-yolked eggs, or if it was just coincidence. Maybe he was wrong for trying to link those two things- him having a grass arm didn’t make him a better gardener after all, or even make him care about plants. If anything, white flowers made him uncomfortable now.

After a while, when Finn suspected Jake noticed him creeping back downstairs in the dead of night, Jake finally breached the topic again, “Finn, you’re not sleeping much are you buddy?”

And yet, even Jake fell victim to the gradualness of it all. To start with, it was just his acceptance to Finn sneaking back downstairs, or finding him there in the morning, sat at the window in a blanket, until the point where Finn wouldn’t sleep for night after night until he had to, staving off sleep with no real reason yet somehow not being able to think of anything worse. 

One day, Finn hadn’t slept since waking up at 4am the previous day, and Jake watched him as they walked through the forest near the treehouse, Finn tripping and stumbling and rubbing his eyes almost continuously, before picking him up without any warning and stretching his way back to the treehouse in but a few steps. Finn expected him to be mad, but he just planted a kiss on Finn’s forehead and lay on top of him until he dozed off, so Finn was stuck there, in bed. His brother had a talent for being able to fall asleep whenever, wherever, and Finn resented him a little for that.

Maybe he was ruining his life. It didn’t feel like he was doing on purpose, Finn thought, stroking Jake’s soft head as they lay on the couch with the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows. Jake always went out of his way to make sure Finn had a shoulder to lean on and someone to listen to his worries. Just, he didn’t want this to go on forever. He was supposed to be an adult, wasn’t he? It wasn’t fun anymore. In fact, nothing was. He was just tired.

The most recent time couldn’t have been more different to his first time. He’s a little surprised Jake agrees so easily to actively allow him to stay up, but he supposes that maybe the two of them are used to it now. That, and he’s old enough anyway. He definitely appreciates Jake’s pledge to stay up, no matter how easily it falls through; and Finn wakes him back up anyway, heaving him out to search for the missing part of his consciousness. 

Normally, after 36 hours or so of no sleep, Finn would crash. This time is different, and not in a good way: not at all in a fun way. He’s kept awake by this knowing worry, a constant and deafening anxiety that’s telling him he’s going to die, he’s going to die, he’s going to die. It floods his brain until he can’t think straight and everything seems unreal and all too close. The only thing that keeps him grounded is the sound of Jake’s voice and the desperate, desperate need to get back Finn Sword. Things can’t get any worse. He can’t let that happen. He doesn’t want the hole he’s in to get deeper.

Eventually, he does crash. He also dies, which wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Watching his own face shatter and the light falling from his eyes hurt, yes, but after that, everything goes black. It's a relief. He doesn’t dream, and he doesn’t wake up- at least, not for a long, long time. Martin, his insecurities, the heavy feeling in his chest; none of them can touch him when he’s dead.

 

\----

 

Unfortunately, he’s not dead forever.


End file.
